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Show THE AMERICAN WAY I h 5 Since iast November 5th this columnist has read many analyses analy-ses prepared by experts and alleged-experts as to what caused a majority of voters to shift from the Democratic to the Republican Republi-can party. Many of these experts, or 'inexperts," as the case may be, also have offered their advice as to how the victorious Republican Repub-lican party should conduct itself in its hottr of triumph. Of all the analyses this writer has been privileged to read, one prepared by the Research Staff of one of the nation's largest industries, in-dustries, seems to come closest to "hitting the nail on the head." After exploring the extent of the partisan shift and its causes, this report summarizes the political situation by offering five obser-, vations, as follows: 1. It would seem that the Republican Re-publican Party has less to fear I from the power of the Democrat-ic Democrat-ic party than it has to fear from its own excessive optimism. Such optimism may result in diverting the Republican party from the i need forf& positive and courag- eous program and thus lead to a relapse. This could dissipate the present Republican strength by 1948. The election was a vote against the Democrats rather than for the Republicans. But a protest vote, for example, ! against the failure of the Demo-j Demo-j crats to deal constructively with the question of labor union abuses can not be interpreted as a vote for the traditional antiunion anti-union policies of twenty years ago. 2. The conservative majority in Congress is not consistently cohesive. Many conservatives will vote for radical legislation, particularly of the Social Security Secur-ity variety, when the pressure groups "turn on the heat." This was clearly shown in the voting last June on the Crosser Act which established a system of medical insurance on the railroads. rail-roads. Furthermore, this conservative conser-vative majority is bi-partisan and may easily split when the issues also involve partisan positions. 3. . There is danger that the conservative elements in the business bus-iness community and throughout the country generally may conclude con-clude that "reaction" is now in order. There is nothing to support sup-port such a conclusion. As we have previously indicated, all of the public opinion polls show that the '.public is generally in favor of j many measures which they think correctly or otherwise, other-wise, wil give greater "security" "securi-ty" to the worker, and most of the voters, as we have also pointed point-ed out, derive their incomes from wages and salaries. 4. There is also danger that some business groups of the ultra-conservative variety will immediately im-mediately take highly reactionary reaction-ary positions. This will play directly di-rectly into the hands of those who say that all business and the Republican party are anti-labor, anti-labor, ready to undo all of the "social gains" of the New Deal. Extreme positions of this kind taken by self-appointed spokesmen spokes-men for industry will do much more harm than good. Only moderate mod-erate and fair positions can hope to rally the vote against abuse into a vote for sound and constructive con-structive programs. 5. It is more important than ever that the truly progressive industrial leadership of the country i demonstrate its pro-gressiveness. pro-gressiveness. This can be done by developing and supporting sound plans to deal with the obvious ob-vious difficulties faced by the ordinary worker rather than being be-ing "against the better life." To illustrate, industry must be FOR stabilization of employment by sound means rather than against the whole idea involved in the issue of the guaranteed annual wage. Now, if all industries will adopt the common sense and fair attitude as expressed in these five observations quoted above, this nation can look forward with confidence to an era of real cooperation co-operation between labor and . management those two great partners of industry. during the session; urged grcai care be exercised in deciding on advisability of purchasing Bush-nell Bush-nell hospital property: requested request-ed study of the State JPrison situation, sit-uation, and suggested adoption of retirement plan for state. county and city employees. WHILE the Governor agreed with the Utah Association, of county officials as to the need for county property taxes for welfare purposes, he failed to touch on the subject of city and county participation in state liquor liq-uor profits, a proposal urged by both the county officials association asso-ciation and the Utah Municipal League. The Governor touched but briefly the State Tax Study Committee's Com-mittee's program which is expected ex-pected to receive a great deal of attention during the session. This committee will recommend a $3,-800,000 $3,-800,000 tax reduction to be attained at-tained through a $700,000 reduction reduc-tion in the property tax for roads and streets; a $1,300,000 reduction reduc-tion in property tax for welfare purposes (as proposed by the Governor) and a $1,800,000 reduction re-duction in the unemployment compensation tax. These reductions would be offset off-set partially by $1,000,000 to be added through tax equalization for school purposes; a shift of $500,000 in automobile registration registra-tion fees from the publicity department de-partment to the B and C road fund and $1,000,000 additional to be obtained through an increased in-creased markup in liquor prices. A lengthy insurance code has been prepared for submission by an intermin legislative insurance study committee, while other interim in-terim committees expected to report re-port are the Bushnell study committee, set up by the special session last August; the Legislative Legis-lative Budget Committee, whose work was suspended December 8, 1945, through lack of funds; j the committee to study racial I discrimination and the Colorado River committee. IT is interesting to note that the broad and varied legislative program will be in the hands of a group of lawmakers experienced experien-ced in all phases of everyday , life. For instance, in the Senate are. four lawyers, three educators, educa-tors, four farmers, two dairymen, two power officials, two businessmen, busi-nessmen, an insurance man, a merchandise broker, a municipal munici-pal employee, a druggist, a banker bank-er and an ex-publisher. Still more representative of the people are the members of the House, where the membership member-ship is composed of five farmers, seven lawyers, two student veterans, vet-erans, three educators, two dairymen, dairy-men, 14 businessmen, four railroad rail-road men, one former Wave, four housewives, one real estate es-tate man, one plumbing contractor, con-tractor, two government employees, em-ployees, one gardner, one engineer, engi-neer, eight livestock men, one labor leader, one coal mine operator, op-erator, one office clerk and a mortician. |